Cuban immigration to the U.S. began in an era of peaceful coexistence
between the two nations. In the latter part of the 19th century,
workers moved freely between Florida and the island, and the trade
in sugar, coffee, and tobacco was lucrative. Cigar companies soon
began relocating from Cuba to avoid tariffs and trade regulations,
and Cubans came by the thousands to work in the factories. Soon
the towns of Key West and Ybor City were the capitals of a tobacco-scented
empire, and also became the centers of new Cuban enclaves. Even
as these communities grew, Cuban workers continued to shuttle
across the Straits of Florida as work allowed. At the beginning
of the 20th century, between 50,000 and 100,000 Cubans moved between
Havana, Tampa, and Key West every year.

At the same time, some Cubans fled political persecution, including
José Martí, the father of Cuban independence,
who worked as a writer in New York City while organizing his
liberation forces. After the Spanish-American War and through
the early 20th century, the U.S. maintained a high level of
interest in Cuban affairs, and U.S. businesses increased their
investments in Cuban enterprises. Meanwhile, as the Cuban government
adopted increasingly repressive policies, opposition leaders
continued to seek refuge in the U.S. In the 1950s, the harsh
regime of Fulgencio Batista brought political resistance to
a boiling point, and the number of refugees swelled.

When Fidel Castro led his revolutionary army into Havana in
January of 1959, he ushered in a new era in Cuban life. He also
launched a new era of mass emigration from his country to the
United States. In the decades that followed, more than one million
Cubans would make their way to the U.S., and thousands more
would try and fail. Once the new Cuban government allied itself
with the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Cuba became open enemies,
and prospective emigrants were at the mercy of international
politics. Through the years, as relations between the countries
improved or deteriorated, the door of emigration would be opened
and closed again and again. As a result, Cubans arrived in the
U.S. in several distinct phases, each of which had a distinctly
different reception.

The first Cubans to flee were the wealthiest—affluent professionals
and members of the Batista regime who feared reprisals from the
new government. More than 200,000 of these “golden exiles”
had left Cuba for the U.S. by 1962, when air flights between the
two countries were suspended. Between 1965 and 1973, a few flights
resumed from Varadero beach in Cuba, and 300,000 more Cubans,
who became known as Varaderos, seized the opportunity to emigrate.
Many of the Cubans of these first waves felt that it was only
a matter of time before the new government was overthrown, and
planned to wait in the U.S. for their opportunity to return.

The immigrants of these first two phases were welcomed in the
U.S. with open arms. It was the peak of the Cold War, and immigrants
from Cuba were viewed by many in the U.S. as refugees from a
dictatorial regime. The U.S. government opened a Cuban Refugee
Center in Miami, and offered medical and financial aid to new
arrivals. In 1966 Congress passed the Cuban American Adjustment
Act, which allowed any Cuban who had lived in the U.S. for a
year to become a permanent resident—a privilege that has
never been offered to any other immigrant group.

The next major group of immigrants received a very different
welcome. In 1980, under international pressure, the Cuban government
opened the port city of Mariel to any Cuban who wanted to leave
for the United States. The Cuban American community mobilized
to help, and within days, a massive flotilla of private yachts,
merchant ships, and fishing boats arrived in Mariel to bring
Cubans to Florida. In the six months the port remained open,
more than 125,000 Cubans were delivered to the U.S. These immigrants,
known as the Marielitos, were much less affluent than previous
generations had been, however, and a few thousand had been incarcerated
while in Cuba. As a result, many Marielitos were stigmatized
in the U.S. as undesirable elements, and thousands were confined
in temporary shelters and federal prisons—some for years.

Many Cubans took even greater risks in their attempts to leave
their country. In the 1980s and 1990s, tens of thousands of
hopeful emigrants attempted to flee by sea, chancing death by
drowning, exposure, or shark attacks to make the 90-mile crossing.
Many thousands rode only on flimsy, dangerous, homemade vessels,
including inner tubes, converted cars, and cheap plywood rafts,
or balsos. Hundreds of the balseros died on the journey, and
both governments came under global pressure to stop the flotillas.
By the end of the 90s, the two countries agreed that U.S. would
return any boats to Cuba.

At the beginning of the 21st century, very few Cuban emigrants
successfully reached the United States. Only a major shift in
relations between the two countries will result in any more
substantial Cuban immigration in the future.